From the pages of Canadian Railway Modeller: Morgan Turney, in his own words

  The 2003 SARS epidemic was one of the most disruptive public-health crises Toronto had experienced in decades. It was relatively short-lived—roughly March through June—but it had consequences for hospitals, health-care workers, tourism—and the Maple Leaf 2003 NMRA convention. For younger readers, SARS was a coronavirus, like COVID, except it wasn’t worldwide. Toronto became a hotspot that year; 44 people died. It came in two waves, with the second occurring in May. The World Health Organization issued two travel warnings, lifting the second one in early July. By then, the damage had been done to the Maple Leaf convention. Many convention-goers, especially Americans, cancelled their trips to the convention. Most exhibitors also pulled out of the national train show. The convention still went ahead, but the NMRA cancelled the national train show. It was replaced by a much smaller locally organized show. Although the convention was severely impacted, it still ended up being a great ...

  Thoughts about what constituted the transition era are in this Dome Car. For me, it was the 1990s on the CP Rail when that railway was undergoing some transitions, or about to, in terms of liveries and locomotives. (When this was written, I didn’t yet have any AC4400 power; those units came later.) I also wrote about retirement—a long way off for me back then, but now a reality as I enter the retirement process. What I was told back then still seems true; that it is actually easier to build a layout while younger than when one is older and has no sense of urgency about time anymore. And I end on a optimistic note about the NMRA convention in Toronto; that optimism would soon be tested.   When people ask me what era I model, I tell them the golden age—the transition era of the mid-1990s on CP Rail.   Of course, that's not what most people think when they hear those words. For most people, the transition era means 1950-60, the time when steam was giving way to die...